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Aviation History
1914
1914 - 0965.PDF
AIRCRAFT AND THE WAR. AGAIN this week we are able to record some official news as to the doings of the Royal Flying Corps in France : on page 963 will be found that part of the summary of Sir John French's despatch which tells of the excellent work done by the flying officers as well as the eloquent testimony of General Joffre, the French Commander-in- Chief, as to the valuable services rendered by the British pilots. Sundry other reports as to what is being done by our pilots on active service are also available from unofficial sources. Thus a correspondent of the Dailv Telegraph, writing from Paris on the 9th inst.:— " The whirring of an aeroplane. Field-glasses have been left behind, and we instinctively shrink into the car, uncertain whether the huge dragon-fly is friend or foe. Suddenly it descends in graceful spirals to the ground, and with delighted eyes we see that it contains a British airman, while a few hundred yards further on we find ourselves in the repairing camp of , where are not only Fiench aviators, but a strong detachment of our own flying corps. Finer-looking men than these latter I have never seen. Well set up and tanned to a deep bronze, our British airmen are the personifi cation of soldierly efficiency grafted on British physique. In com mand is , who holds the English record for long-distance, and he may well be proud of his corps. We exchange greeting* all round, have a hasty glance through the camp, and are regaled with accounts of German bomb-throwing at Compiegne, and of the superiority of our air-craft and its navigators over any others—which we can well believe." Another side of the pilot's work is seen in the following story as told by Sergeant Werner, who is said to have been the first German to fly over Paris, and told by Mr. Karl von Wiegand of the United Press, who is now at Liege:— " I received orders," Werner said, '' to locate the English and French forces, and, accompanied by another officer as an observer, I flew southward from Mons, following the main road leading to Paris which led along the edge of a magnificent forest in which more than forty thousand inhabitants had taken refuge. " After flying for an hour, we located the English, and saw where the French artillery was taking up a new position, together with the English, and preparing to make a stand. Having obtained the desired information the observer with me made a rough sketch. I turned the monoplane to start on the way back, when suddenly I looked up and saw a thousand feel above us a Bristol biplane. It was pursuing us. We were 5,000 ft. up, but my monoplane was slower than the Bristol, which soon caught us up. I tried in vain to climb above the Bristol, which was directly over us. I expected every moment a bomb to hit us. " The English machine swooped lower and lower, until it was only 500 ft. directly over us, ard I felt like a bird when an eagle or a hawk is sweeping down on it. I thought it was getting nearer in order to get a better aim for a bomb. The experience was absolutely nerve-wracking. Both the other officer and myself began shooting automatic pistols at our pursuer, as it was now ev.dent that the Englishman had no bombs. Fortunately for us, our propeller was in front, and they could not shoot at us that way. The biplane suddenly veered to the side and lowered to about 150 ft. higher than we were and 500 ft. distant. The pilot and his observer began shooting at us, but the noise of the motors drowned the reports. We could, however, see the flashes of the pistols. The duel continued for half an hour. Evidently the Englishmen, while speedier than we, .were armed only with pistols. Minute after minute, each of which seemed hours, I began to fee! helpless, and felt ourselves slower and unwieldier, and thinking every moment would be the end. My observer touched my shoulder, and pointed up. " I looked, and there a thousand feet higher, coming at a tremendous speed, was a small French Bleriot, like an eagle, to join in the attack. It was speedier than the Bristol, and soon was encircling us, crossing before us, swooping down and then away, vivid flashes showing that it was firing at us. I thought our end was certain then, when our troops suddenly appeared beneath, firing at the Bleriot and the Bristol. They immediately turned and disappeared." Mr. Wiegand added :—" Werner told me that he dropped three bombs in Paris during his first flight, one of which lay unexploded on the roof of a house in one of the boulevards. He carries in his monoplane twelve I lb. and 4 lb. bombs. He says that as an offensive weapon Zeppelins are far superior to aeroplanes. From sources which I may not mention, 1 am told that the Germans are building Zeppelins very rapidly, and that they have many more than is generally known.'' In his account of the battle of Meaux, Mr. G. Ward Price of the Daily Mail recounts how he met a middle- aged cyclist who said :— *' I cycled out to see something, and I was talking to an officer at the cross-roads down there when one of those dirty aeroplanes signalled us to a battery, and they sent a shell right on top of us. It killed the officer's horse and carried away my cap ; I thought that I was dead." It was reported from Paris on the 10th jnst. that a German aeroplane which had dropped two bombs on the railway line near Chalons camp was brought down by French soldiers. The pilot was killed and the observer wounded. The latter, who understood a little French, expressed great surprise on learning that the British were fighting with the French and that the Russians had captured Lemberg. It also was stated on this date that five persons were killed by the fall of a French military aeroplane in Vin- cennes Wood on the previous Tuesday. The pilot was Corporal Prudhommeau, who had been promoted a few days before for his exploit in dropping bombs on the German airship shed at Metz, by which it is claimed that he destroyed a Zeppelin and two Taube aeroplanes. Pilot and observer were killed by the fall, and three passers-by by the explosion of several bombs which the airmen had on board. Captain Robin Grey, Royal Flying Corps, who. It is reported, has been decorated with the Legion of Honour for distinguished services in the field. Captain Grey learned to fly at the Bristol School, and took his brevet at Brooklands on June 16th, 1913. 965
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